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Kingston Leads the DRAM Module Industry: TrendForce

Kingston Technology maintained its leading position in the top ten PC DRAM module manufacturers, with the global PC DRAM module market revenues to be 32% higher than 2012, according to DRAMeXchange, the memory and storage research division of TrendForce.
The global PC DRAM module market revenues reached the US$ 7.3 billion in 2013 over 2012's US$ 5.5 billion.

The main factors leading to the revenue growth included price increases for PC DRAM, increased spot market demand, and the rising proportion of contract market transactions.

Following Kingston Technology, ADATA Technology and Ramaxel ended up in second and third place, respectively, showing respective revenue growth of 116% and 37%.

2013 was a strong year for the entire DRAM industry as far as price growth is concerned, pointed out DRAMeXchange. The DRAM market's transformation into an oligopoly has enabled the market's supply and demand to be more tightly regulated, while the top tier DRAM manufacturers' decision to transition to Mobile DRAM following the increased sales of smartphones and tablets caused PC DRAM supply to tighten. The DDR3 4Gb contract prices, as a result of the restricted PC DRAM supplies, rose from a low of US$ 1.84 to US$ 3.94, a 114% increase. The spot market price for DDR3 4Gb, on the other hand, rose approximately 88% to US$ 4.27 thanks to the DRAM manufacturers' decision to prioritize supplies for PC-OEM clients in 2013. At present, the difference between the contract and spot prices is still around 20%. Though uncommon in the industry, the simultaneous contract and spot price growth has provided a notable boost to the module manufacturers' annual revenues.

For Kingston Technology, the eMCP product lines developed by the company's subsidiary, KSI, has enabled it to increase its revenues in the China market, and in turn encouraged it to set its target on the first tier manufacturers' supply chains. ADATA, which finished in the second place, managed to increase its revenues by a hefty 116% in 2013 and was able to retain a leading position in Taiwan's module memory market due to its low cost inventory and flexible business strategies. Benefiting from the product orders from domestic clients such as Lenovo and the strong sales momentum in foreign markets, Ramaxel ended in third place in 2013, and saw its revenues grow by 37%. Thanks to the consistently stable supplies from its parent company, Micron, Crucial Technology (whose official name is set to be changed to Micron Consumer Products Group in the future), ended up in the fourth place. Transcend rose from the eighth to fifth spot this year due to the major growth in the sales of its industry memory products.